Published on Friday, October 27, 2017 By GGTheMachine In Ashes Dev Journals

G'day!

For the past month we've been working on the 2.6 update which is currently in QA testing and scheduled for early November. I already revealed some info about it in the September Dev Journal, but I'd like to drop more of a teaser.

##Quality of Life Changes##2.6 isn't going to be our most exciting update, but it contains a great deal of Quality of Life changes and gameplay reworks that have long been requested and players will be happy to see implemented. These includes things like larger cursors for higher resolutions and changes to the way players are alerted about Logistics. Never again will a Dreadnought be at 99.99% waiting for the player to press Logistics but without them being alerted to do so.

I think these little improvements are cool; they add up and are so important in the long run for building a great game and growing a player base, which is why they took the priority over work on bigger projects such as air transports.

##Scalability of Production##We pride Ashes on featuring epic battles on the large scale, so we want to enhance this by giving more scalability to late game production. Multiple Engineers and Constructors will be able to boost build speed more effectively, so long as players have the late game economy to support it. Refineries and Harvesters gave almost unlimited income potential, and now there will be unlimited build speed potential to match it.

Building advanced defenses in the late game is being streamlined; Avatars and Sappers will be able to directly construct advanced defenses without needing to upgrade from basic defenses, cutting out a bunch of clicks and time in the process. Late game will feel a lot better in 2.6.

##UI Changes##There's a few changes to the UI coming in 2.6, but primarily a rework of the unit panel to remove wasted space and improve the usability and appearance of the different panels. Here's a sneak peak.

##Player Reports##

I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who reports issues and bugs on our forums or Discord. We do monitor them regularly and there's been a few fixes in 2.6 that have only happened because a user brought our attention to it. We do thorough QA testing, but it's inevitable for things to slip through the cracks with something as complicated as Ashes. So thanks and keep it up!

I'd like to give a community shoutout to an excellent video guide by CenturianMudPig. He explains how the economy works and all the ways to increase income. If you know someone new to the game or haven't quite figured it all yet, you may find this guide helpful!

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and thanks for being a great community! Stay tuned for 2.6 coming shortly.